LOCAL COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Municipal Support Project

Within the Municipalities Support Project, which is being conducted in ten municipalities in Serbia (Ada, Bela Crkva, Kovacica, Smederevo, Krusevac, Prijepolje, Kursumlija, Lebane, Presevo, Dimitrovgrad) by the Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities (www.skgo.org) with the support of OSCE Mission in Serbia and Montenegro, CeSID has participated in two activities:

1. Training courses for representatives of the media, non-governmental organizations, civic associations or citizens ready to contribute to the improvement of life in local communities.

Two-day training courses for the media and non-governmental organizations were held in each of 10 municipalities in three series. Each series of the training covered one field that can be of some importance to the improvement of communication and cooperation of the media and NGOs with the municipality and its bodies, as well as to the monitoring of the work of local self-government bodies, aiming at increasing their efficiency and transparency.

The first series of the training referred to the authorities and local self-government bodies. The second included the training in the field of problem-identification at the local level and monitoring the work of local self-government bodies, with the emphasis on the work of the municipal assembly. The third series was related to the accessibility to information of public importance (in the context of the work that should be done by the media and the non-governmental sector), to the Law on prevention of the conflict of interest, as well as to CeSID’s experience in the field of “watchdog” activities.
Nearly 150 participants per series participated in the training courses.

1. Monitoring the work of Municipal Assemblies (MA)

The aim of conducting the monitoring is to have an insight into the present state in terms of functioning of Municipal Assemblies, but also to estimate to which extent the state changed after the Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities had conducted the trainings for municipal representatives. CeSID conducted external monitoring of the work of MA within four aspects:

1. the work of Municipal Assemblies and decision-making process,
2. implementation of the Code of Ethics of local self-government officials,
3. the relation of the Municipal Assembly to other bodies of local self-government,
4. the relation of the Municipal Assembly to the citizens who live on the territory of a particular municipality through monitoring the transparency in work

After establishing criteria and creating forms for reporting, CeSID has started the monitoring process. Monitoring included collecting data by the presence at Municipal Assemblies’ sessions, the analysis of documents which form the normative framework within which MAs operate (the Law on Self-Government, Municipal Statute, Bylaws, Code of Ethics of local self-government officials), collecting the agenda and minutes of Municipal Assemblies sessions, direct interviews with municipal administration and officials, as well as with the media, using the Internet. During the monitoring CeSID was assisted by OSCE collaborators who have been involved in the internship program in municipalities.
By now, the first series of the monitoring has been conducted, on the basis of which the present state of Municipal Assemblies’ work has been established.